Ann Dvorak

Actress

Female

BornAug 2, 1911

HometownNew York City, Ne...

Death PlaceHonolulu, Hawaii

Height5' 4" (164 cm)

NationalityAmerican

Other NamesAnna McKim

Eye ColorBrown - Dark

Hair ColorBlack

Ann Dvorak was an American film actress. Asked how to pronounce her adopted surname, she told The Literary Digest: "My name is properly pronounced vor'shack. The D remains silent. I have had quite a time with the name, having been called practically everything from Balzac to Bickelsrock."… Read More

News + Updates

'At the Paramount Theatre see Ann Dvorak and Gene Evans in the danger zone of “I Was an American Spy.” A miniature cloudburst accompanied by hail hit Brainerd and part of the lake region, with local showers recorded for only a few minutes in the morning'

'I rented Three on a Match around 1995 and was blown away by Ann Dvorak in it. She projected so much nervous raw energy, and even though the film was made during the pre-Code era I was still caught off guard by how edgy her performance was'

'The daughter of silent-film actress Anna Lehr and director Edward McKim, Ann Dvorak began her film career at the dawn of the sound era. The pretty, wide-eyed Dvorak was one of those performers who not only could but should have become major stars'

Timeline

CHILDHOOD

1911Birth
Born on August 2, 1911.

TWENTIES

193422 Years Old
Ann would not see her father again until a national appeal to the press reunited the two in 1934.
… Read More

As a child, she appeared in several films. She began working for MGM in the late 1920s as a dance instructor and gradually began to appear on film as a chorus girl. Her friend Joan Crawford introduced her to Howard Hughes, who groomed her as a dramatic actress. She was a success in such pre-Code films as Scarface (1932), as Paul Muni's character's sister; as the doomed unstable Vivian in Three on a Match (1932), with Joan Blondell and Bette Davis; in Love Is a Racket (1932); and opposite Spencer Tracy in Sky Devils (1932).<br /><br /> Known for her style and elegance, she was a popular leading lady for Warner Brothers during the 1930s, and appeared in numerous contemporary romances and melodramas. A dispute over her pay (she discovered she was making the same amount of money as the little boy who played her son in Three on a Match) led to her finishing out her contract on permanent suspension, and then working as a freelancer, but although she worked regularly, the quality of her scripts declined sharply. She appeared as secretary Della Street to Donald Woods' Perry Mason in The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (1937). She also acted on Broadway. With her then-husband, British actor Leslie Fenton, Dvorak travelled to England where she supported the war effort by working as an ambulance driver, and appeared in several British films. Read Less

THIRTIES

194634 Years Old
She gives a magnificent and unforgettable performance as a saloon singer in Abilene Town, released in 1946.

195139 Years Old
She retired from the screen in 1951, when she married her third and last husband, Nicholas Wade, to whom she remained married until his death in 1975.
… Read More

It was her longest and most successful marriage. She had no children.<br /><br /> She lived her post-retirement years in anonymity until her death from stomach cancer in Honolulu at the age of 68. She was cremated and her ashes scattered.<br /><br /> Ann Dvorak has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6321 Hollywood Boulevard. Read Less